


L'Arc-en-Ciel

by standalone



Series: Teachers AU [4]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Alternate Universe - Race Changes, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Blind Date, F/F, Love at First Sight, Magic, Pegatha, Set-Up, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 12:25:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7892260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standalone/pseuds/standalone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Way back in February, Basil set up his former lover and his department chair on a surprise date. </p><p>Here's how Agatha remembers it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L'Arc-en-Ciel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knightinbrightfeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinbrightfeathers/gifts).



> This story takes place during [Chapter 8](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5898043/chapters/14391031) of [_This is Mr. Pitch_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5898043?view_full_work=true). Maybe this reads better if you've read that first, but really, it's its own story. In a nutshell, in this AU, everyone's grown-up and from the US, and most of them are teachers. Also, everyone wants love.
> 
> *
> 
> For the Pegatha champion, [knightinbrightfeathers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinbrightfeathers/pseuds/knightinbrightfeathers). I hope you love it!
> 
> Thanks, as ever, to world's best beta [Snowflake8](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowflake8/pseuds/Snowflake8).

There’s a look people get when they know you from the news. No, scratch that. _Several_ looks.

Some people light up. _It’s really you?_ their eyes ask in silent wonder, already assured of your greatness.

Others, having built you into someone horrible, recoil. _That woman_ , they seem to say. _Never thought much of her_.

And still others register confusion. They cannot reconcile your public persona with an actual, physical presence. _You?_ they demand. _You don’t belong here_.

I saw this last in this woman’s face at the moment that Basil rose to offer me his chair. The recognition was immediate, and though she smiled, it was a smile that just barely touched the corners of her full, bronze lips. There was distrust in seeing a face she knew through photos and sound bites here, in the flesh. 

She sat very still, looking up at me, the wine list forgotten in her immobile hands, and somehow I found myself seated as well, nearly beside her at the secluded little table.

“This is a set-up,” Basil said, and whatever followed fled my mind. He introduced us. He must have introduced us, because I somehow found, looking at her incredulous face, that my brain provided a name: Penelope.

A name as lovely as the sunscape of her face. A name as enticing as the air around us, a mix of the kitchen’s spices and woodsmoke and something indescribable that had to be her. 

I don’t consider myself expert in smell-identification, but I’ve smelled that smell enough now that I can with certainty say that it’s the sweet perfume of orange-flowers in sun. At the time, I could only think that her scent reached me across the table, that I wanted to lean in to smell more closely the mingling scents of warm skin and fresh blossom.

“Here,” Basil said, tossing something onto the table. Landing, it fanned into a little sheaf of cards. “Some things to talk about, as if you'll need help. I'm leaving now. Dinner's on me, by the way, so don't try to leave. Get good wine. You are both very worthy of the best the house can offer.” In what may be the most awkward physical encounter he and I have ever shared, he patted me roughly on the shoulder. “I'm leaving you alone now.” 

He was gone. At least, I suspect he was gone; I was too gratified to note Penelope’s quizzical gaze upon mine to pay much attention. 

_This_ was a certain scrutiny that I very much liked. It seemed to suggest not dislike but wariness. I almost regretted that I had arrived straight from work, that I was dressed and made up for the boardroom. Penelope, dressed simply and without makeup, looked sensible. The only aspect of her appearance even hinting at elaborate preparation was the gleaming red-brown coronet of her braided hair. All together, she exuded an innate honesty that seemed perhaps at odds with the delicate machinations of my expensively professional demeanor and wardrobe.

I did not want Penelope to think us fundamentally at odds.

The server stopped in to take a wine order. After a glance at Penelope, whose nod indicated that I should go ahead, I ordered a bottle of Napa Sauvignon Blanc without even opening the list. I wanted him gone.

“You work with Basil,” I said. I had heard her name so many times.

“I do.” The guarded look remained.

“You teach English?”

“I do.”

“You’re the department chair, isn’t that right?”

“I am.” Letting out a heavy breath, she shook her head a little. Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, hell. I’m sorry. Let me tell you, I was not—not at _all_ —expecting this. I’m sort of reeling.”

I nodded. “Blindsided,” I agreed.

The server returned with a bottle. We both appreciated, I think, that the uncorking provided us a moment to process our sudden and shared reality: we were apparently on a date.

She watched me taste the wine. Her eyes felt as cool as the thin glass in my hand as I lifted the wine to my nose and lowered my eyelids to sniff it. It’s one of my favorites, sharp and mineral with only the faintest memory of sweetness. I tasted it and allowed the wine to sit, for a minute, on my tongue before I inclined my head toward our server to indicate that he should pour. 

“To life and health,” I toasted her.

“Cheers,” she returned, touching her glass to mine.

“Are you from around here?” I asked as she sipped.

“Kind of. Not really. My dad grew up here and fled the snow. But I came back.”

“Where’d he go? Florida?”

She laughed. “No, my folks are back in California.” She took another drink. “This is delicious. Obviously you share Basil’s impeccable taste. How do the two of you know each other?”

The question was casual, but I could feel the weight of it. She doubted me. She doubted something about the fitness of a linkage between the two of us. And this could not stand. 

Basil was not the type to set up an indiscriminate date. I could only assume that he had carefully vetted all mental considerations and found us mutually appropriate. I didn’t know why, but I believed in it. I felt it.

Penelope wakened something inside of me—not just the instinct to close every deal, but a deeper need to connect. I didn’t just want her to trust me; I wanted to be worthy of that trust.

I was beginning to suspect that Basil’s matchmaking considerations included a check-box for magic. If they did, well, I had to know. I had to let _her_ know. Because if she was magical too, she would have to understand me. Wouldn’t she?

“We went to Charm School together,” I said. It was, of course, a calculated risk. The benefit-cost ratio was astronomical. At worst, she’d laugh about the idea of modern-day charm schools. At best, she would ...

 _Oh._ At best, she would pause, agape, eyes behind the pointed glasses huge and liquid and for the first time unguarded, wondering mouth half-way to round, and—oh my—with a swift and thrilling assurance, place a tingling hand atop my own. An enormous purple stone glinted from one finger.

“Then you _are_?” she asked. She didn’t really need to. Shivery as we both already were with the unexpected splendor of each other’s new acquaintance, that was nothing to the current where our skin touched. I turned my hand right-way up below her own so that I could run the tip of my thumb along the side of one of her fingers. We could almost hear the resonance peal through the air. 

“I guess we have that in common,” I smiled, leaning in a little and looking up at her from under my lashes. Agatha Wellbelove has not sat through one thousand mindnumbing corporate portrait sessions for naught. I am aware of my angles.

She looked a little flummoxed. This, I am well accustomed to. I flummox people often. Often, I flummox people into donating millions of dollars they don’t need to help people they don’t care about. Occasionally, I have flummoxed people into bed, although I certainly prefer not to. (This was definitely one of the benefits of the arrangement with Basil—neither of us felt outmatched.) But I have rarely, if ever, felt quite so utterly flummoxed in return.

“I apologize for what I’m about to ask,” Penelope said softly. She sounded hypnotized. “But are you _enchanting_ me?”

The warmth in her face, her cheeks darkening with embarrassment, her eyes on mine, my inability to look away—it was all too much. I started to laugh. It just poured out, not gentle, not delicate, not beautiful, but full and alive. Afraid she’d think I was laughing at her, I clutched her hand in mine. 

“No,” I gasped. “No, nothing of the kind. I’m only laughing because... because I have been contemplating the possibility that you are, maybe, _magnetic_ or something.” I shook my head. “It’s impossible to imagine not looking at you right now.”

“And this is funny?” Penelope asked, brows sloping toward one another in uncertain mirth.

“Penelope,” I said, drawing a breath. “I have been called ‘level-headed,’ ‘temperate,’ and ‘placid’ at my last professional review, therapy session, and breakup, respectively. I don’t lose my cool. I promise you, this loss of control isn’t _funny_ to me. It’s hilarious.” 

_And frightening_ , I added silently. _Agatha Wellbelove approaches love with a net and a magnifying glass. It does_ not _sneak up on her._

“Oh, then I’m cool with that,” she said, but the hoods had slipped back over her eyes. 

“What did you think I was laughing at?” I asked, more serious.

“I mean.” She paused. Her face blazed with determination. “That the idea that it’s funny to want to look at me could come off as cruel.”

“Oh shit,” I said, horrified into profanity. “Oh no. There is nothing at all funny about how very much I am enjoying looking at you. But the thought that I’m enchanting you? Maybe it’s the air. Maybe it’s a trap. But I’m caught up in it at least as much as you are.”

“Oh,” she said. Her smile was small but real. God, my chest hurt. “I always think I’ve outgrown it, but I can be a little sensitive.”

All I could do was shake my head. 

“Will you order for us?” she asked as the server hove back into view. “I’ll eat anything.”

“Are you okay with vegetarian?”

She raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Sure.”

I ordered the winter greens and new potatoes and _tarte aux poireaux_ and the mussels. “I thought you said you’re vegetarian!” she accused as soon as the server had left.

“I’m _almost always_ vegetarian,” I clarified. 

“Mussels are hardly even animals,” she said thoughtfully. “In fact, we’re pretty sure they don’t feel pain or have anything approaching what we’d consider ‘thought processes.’ Plenty of otherwise-hardcore vegans eat oysters and mussels, although of course this is the source of significant debate in food-ethics circles.” She cut herself off, chagrined. “Obviously, you’re the almost-vegetarian here, so you probably know that. Feel free to tell me to shut it when I get too teachery.”

I just smiled and shook my head a little so that the earrings jounced against my jawbone. When you’re not sure what to say, sometimes an enigmatic silence is the best option. I loved her ‘teachery.’ It was like a little flood pouring out. I wanted to hear her talk and talk and talk.

“And, Penelope,” I said, touching her hand again because she was still right there and I really didn’t understand why we were not touching. “The mussels here are _so good_.” 

Unfortunately, touching her hand this second time, now that she was growing bolder around me, was more frightening than the first, because whatever this matchmaking magic was, it had control over my eyes now, I was quite certain; they dragged over the smooth brown skin of her hand to the pale rose of her sweater, then along the fine woolen ridges to the tops of her round arms, to the severely snug ribbing at the clavicle, and then down, to lock on the amplitudes of her bosom. My insides went hot, and so, probably, did my face. My god. Agatha Wellbelove _knows where a person’s eyes are_. 

“I am so sorry,” I gulped, pulling my hand away, “I’ll be back in a moment.” I needed a thousand moments. One would have to do.

*

Considering its posh street, innovative take on seasonal classics, and high-end pricing, L’Arc-en-Ciel is a surprisingly unpretentious spot. Sometimes I bring business partners for a drink at the end of the day; there are usually a few families scattered around the bigger tables, enjoying an early dinner before the tables clear and fill again with customers unfettered by bedtimes, who can easily stretch a meal to three hours and leave plump and tipsy with handshakes for the bartender and for the maître d’, who always makes sure there’s a safe ride waiting out front. 

It’s pretty, too—dim but not dark, with hand-wrought iron sconces in the wall, enormous thick-banded iron chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, gleaming wood and candlelight.

It’s a good date spot, I reflected as I wound my way to the back of the dining area. Basil chose well.

Locking the door of the restroom, I pulled out my mirror. “ _Coward,_ ” it said immediately.“ _What are you doing in here with me?_ ”

“I’m not ready for this,” I whispered. It’s a private restroom, but still, it’s wise to keep one’s voice down when speaking to inanimate objects. “I’ve been caught unawares. I’ve known her for all of twenty minutes, and I think I’m going to melt before we get to dessert.”

“ _Agatha_ ,” my reflection said, rolling its eyes genially but with emphasis. _“A Wellbelove does not flee life.”_

“I don’t even know what I’m feeling. It’s like jealousy and lust and hunger all balled together.”

_“It’s want.”_

“But I’ve never wanted another—”

“ _Agatha,_ you _decide what you want. You are beholden to no one else. Not even to your past self. If you want this woman, you want her.”_

“I don’t know what to do.”

_“There’s exactly one way to find out.”_

“What if I’m leading her on?”

 _“Are you?”_ In the mirror, my face looked at me, level and hard. 

“No!” The vehemence of my answer surprised me. “I’m just afraid.” 

_“Of what?”_

“That... that she’ll see through me. That she’ll think I’m vain and avaricious and obsessed with fame.”

_“Why would she think that?”_

“Because, well. Because sometimes I am.”

 _“Yet you are selfish enough to crave her adoration,”_ it teased.

“Yes.” My heart soared at the thought. My chest resounded with it. It’s not accustomed to so much lightness. “And if she knows enough about me, maybe she won’t.”

_“We cannot truly adore what we do not truly know.”_

The words fluttered through me like confidence. “You think I should take the chance.” My mirror image winked at me. “Damn it. Damn you. I want her enough to risk it.”

_“Then go to her. Confront the inferno.”_

The image faded, as my mirror is wont to do when it’s had enough. 

I took a moment at the mundane mirror on the wall, then, touching up my eyes and lips with the usual delicate dabs of gloss and color that convince most people that this is just how I look. _Penelope_ would not believe that, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t like it.

*

When I returned to the table, Penelope was leafing through the little stack of index cards Basil had left behind. “He’s observant,” she observed. “I’ll give him that.” She lifted one. _“In what circumstances will Penelope Bunce tolerate cats?”_ She may have blushed a little. “Um, _no._ ” I made a mental note to follow up on the question later. Another: _“Discuss a moment when each of you took a literal stand against injustice._ I wonder what he had in mind.” She mulled it over for a moment, then the blush further mottled her skin, and she moved on again. “Right. Pitch. _How does a prominent buttoned-down philanthropist conceal her distinctly non-corporate penchant for flashy tattoos?_ ” She looked up, mischief in her eyes, and it was my turn to go red. “Well?”

“Um,” I said, cornered. My tattoos are secrets, but I’d just resolved that there was nothing I’d keep from Penelope. “Sides. I wear a lot of backless dresses, sleeveless dresses, whatever, at these society things, but no one ever tries to style you in a sideless dress, so that’s where I get away with it.”

“What are they?” she asked.

“Not telling,” I said, and her face fell beautifully and made my punchline a thousand times more satisfying: “You’ll have to wait and see.”

*

The mussels came steaming in a graciously broad bowl of broth, accompanied by fresh, crusty bread for dipping. Their scents of white wine and fennel hung around us like an airborne intoxicant. We ate, and gazed at one another, and picked apart Basil’s questions.

“We were lovers,” I said abruptly over a forkful of chicories.

She smiled, toying with the stem of her glass. “You and Basil?” she asked, shaking her head as if the thought amused her. “When?” I could hear in the question the tone of a person who thinks she’s discussing something long past.

“Probably most recently in December?” I said, trying to keep it light.

Penelope goggled at me.

“As in December _two months ago_ December?”

“Right. That one.”

“Holy shit.” 

“I felt that you should know. I assume from the whole fact of the set-up that you’re not seeing anyone, but if you are...”

“Nothing serious,” she said, and I believed her, but that didn’t prevent my feeling a stab of jealousy about whatever not-serious person might have been non-seriously seeing her.

*

Forestalling any hint of departure, I insisted on digestifs. When I set down my madeira, she picked it up and asked, “Can I try this?” I watched her sip at it and the sparkle in her eye when she registered its sweetness. I didn’t ask to try her cognac; I just did it, primarily because I wanted to see her face at the presumption. The corner of her mouth quirked into a smile; sipping, I had to struggle not to sputter. Hard liquor is no friend of mine. It was what she liked, though, and I wanted her to see that I am not unwilling to make an effort.

Outside the window, in the light of distant streetlamps, a light snow began to fall.

“Thank god for weekends,” she said, swallowing the last of the cognac in her glass. “I don’t have words for how much I look forward to sleeping in tomorrow.”

“Rub it in,” I said, following suit with my madeira. “I have to be up by 5:30.”

“Good fucking god,” she said, appalled. “On a _Saturday_?”

“Philanthropists never sleep,” I shrugged. “Or they’re on the other side of the world, and like to see you suffer a little for their money.”

“Please tell me you get to go back to sleep after.”

“I most certainly do. If you want to know a secret, chances are excellent that I’ll only be dressed from the waist up. Tasteful shirt, necklace, concealer under the eyes so that on the video chat no one will suspect that under the table I’m in sweats and slippers.”

She looked at my wool business frock appraisingly. “It’s extremely difficult for me to imagine you in sweats and slippers.”

“Your imagination disappoints me,” I teased.

“I’ll have to see it to believe it,” she said. It was like a cymbal crashing—I remembered, suddenly, that this meal we were dragging out to the last minutes of the staff’s patience was not going to be our only chance.

“Forgive me if this is too forward,” I began, brain still fumbling to find the next part of what I meant to say.

“Forward’s great,” she said. “Definitely beats the alternative.”

“Old-fashioned?” I asked. “Dull? Staid?”

“Darling,” she whispered as if astonished, and it was in this moment that I knew, with absolute blinding clarity, that I was not just smitten, but _committed_. “Did you fail first grade? The opposite of ‘forward’ is ‘backward.’”

“I don’t go backward,” I said. It came out far more serious than I intended.

“So, moving _forward_ ,” I said, and let the quiet hover between us for a moment. “We will do this again?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, we will. Yes.” She chuckled a little and shook her head. “But we need to get out of here now.” She motioned toward the maître d’, who was ostentatiously polishing clean flatware at the bar. “Pretty soon, she’s going to knife us.”

Having gathered our coats, we walked out into the icy night and stood together, close and uncertain, out front.

At the same moment, we both asked, “Can I walk you to—,” then broke off, giggling a little. 

“I parked a few blocks down,” she said, tugging on mittens against the cold. “If you want to walk me, I’ll drive you to your car.”

“Lovely,” I said, holding out a hand. She took it as if without a thought. Through the wool of her mitten, I felt the enormous lump of her ring. “Is it your instrument?” I asked.

“Yep. Gaudy and unwieldy, but so convenient.”

With my free hand, I pulled out my mirror and handed it to her. 

“Oh.” She stopped under a streetlight so that she could see it. Pulling off her mittens, she pushed gently at the catch. The mirror sprung open and she gazed into it. After a moment, she looked up, mildly disappointed. “I always hope other people’s instruments will be magical for me too.”

I touched a finger to the bare stone of her ring. It sparkled in the yellow light of the streetlamp, but there was another light inside it too, like its core was molten lava. _Confront the inferno_ , _Agatha_. “Maybe it will,” I said. “Make a wish.”

She didn’t, though. She just looked down into my face. 

“Darling,” I said, using her word—she’d used it to tease me, but I meant it as seriously as I ever mean anything. She was holding my magic and my heart. Her eyes, behind their lenses, glinted darkly. 

“Darling?” she inquired, as if trying it on as a real endearment. 

In answer, I kissed her.

I have not kissed many women, but I have kissed a great many people. It is rarely, if ever, like this.

*

I didn’t sleep well that night. Who would, with the imprint of that moment under the streetlight shining in her memory, the imprint of those teeth, just the tiniest bit crooked, still pulsing under the tender skin of her lips?

I cleaned my face and teeth, took out the contacts, changed for bed, and clicked out the light, but despite the wine, sleep danced beyond reach. Nearer, visions of Penelope beckoned, and I clutched at them, whirled them across the floor, dragged them to my bosom, and then ... what? Here, my imagination failed me. I was drawn, irrevocably, to Penelope’s body as well as her mind, but I didn’t know what to do with it. My same-sex explorations had never ventured beyond a little kissing and mild groping. To imagine more was, by equal measure, unsettling and magnificent. I played the scenario out in my head over and over with tiny revisions but each iteration centered around my granting Penelope the kind of shuddering, gasping climax that usually requires months of practice to bring about.

In my mind’s eye, it was easy enough to see _her_ , her face a picture of ecstasy, her voice rough, her body tense with pleasure. It was much harder to imagine _me_. How was I conjuring these moans and sighs? _Not conjuring_ , I scolded myself. How was I _touching_ her? With my hands? My mouth? Where? 

I had never loved oral sex. Not true: I loved _getting_ it. I loved the counterplay of the soft and the forceful, the sucking and pressure and power, all together. And I didn’t _object_ to giving head, but it had always felt awkward. All I could think about was control. In a world where size, whiteness, and masculinity hold court, I’m small, Asian-American, and a woman. I’m also used to being in charge. There are plenty of people who’d love to see me on my knees. 

When I sucked a cock, even though it was always just fine, I never ever felt like I was the one in control. 

So I was surprised to find my mind drifting down, over and over, to the welcome, swelling warmth of Penelope Bunce’s vulva. I wanted her in my mouth. I wanted to touch her with my tongue, to tease her and lick her and nip at her flesh and hear her cry out. I didn’t know what she would taste like—I wondered if she would taste like me, if all women taste roughly alike, or if her taste would shock me. I worried I’d be dreadful at it.

I rarely take on new endeavors without extensive practice in isolation. This, however, didn’t seem like a skill that lent itself to private study. Instead, I imagined it—my tongue, my lips, her clefts and swells and crannies. My hands drifted into my nightclothes as I pictured her face, her heaving chest, her dripping cunt.

Over and over...

At well past 2 a.m., I tugged open the bedside table in frustration and let a charmed vibrator do its terse best to address the situation.

* 

At 5:45, I woke to the burble of coffee brewing and the birds on the line--no, I woke to the din of my alarm clock, but the coffee _was_ burbling, and the birds _did_ twitter away outside.

The call was brisk and efficient and I tumbled back in bed not much more than an hour after waking, having secured a commitment big enough that I couldn’t bring myself to care that I was wearing a freshly-pressed silk blouse to my rumpled bed.

I was just drifting back into sleep when a text woke me up.

 _How’d it go?_

I blinked at the unfamiliar number.

A follow-up: _(Penelope Bunce, by the way)_

Oh.

My fingers found my lips. Contact, so soon. Why was I surprised? Agatha Wellbelove isn’t surprised when people call the morning after. But this surprised me.

 **A win!** I texted back. **They’ll partner. ($$$)**

_Huzzah. Congratulations. Celebrate it_

**Was celebrating w sleep...**

_Sorry, me too. Just thought I’d check. Go back to sleep!_

Oh no. I wasn’t letting this slip away so easily.

 **Breakfast?** I typed.

 _Good idea,_ she shot back. _But you should sleep first, then eat breakfast. The standard progression_

I chuckled aloud. **No, darling**. I looked at the word I’d just typed, and felt a little exciting shiver tickle my lungs. **Have breakfast with me. Celebrating, right?**

Her replies had been so fast that the minute’s pause on this one felt like an eon. Finally, it came:

_But, sleeping?_

I groaned. I really _was_ exhausted. Sleep was not a horrible idea. I squinted at the clock. 7:22.

 **Right. After we sleep. Meet me here around 10?** I sent my address. When Penelope’s _Okay_ came through, I silenced the phone and tumbled headlong into sleep.

*

The doorbell woke me up. Like everything in my apartment, the bell was elegant, understated, but when the gentle ring of it resonated through my subconscious, I sprang from bed in alarm. I grabbed my phone. 10:10. Two new messages.

_On my way_

_Out in the hall. Still sleeping?_

Groping for my glasses, I pocketed the phone and ran for the front door. 

I threw it open, and there on my threshold, looking composed and just the slightest shrinking edge of hesitant on my doormat in leggings, a stretchy skirt, and an argyle-patterned sweater, was Penelope. 

Her eyes widened.

“Sweet Morgana, now I’ve done it,” she said, looking with troubled eyes at where the crumpled tails of my white silk shirt overhung my snug lounge pants. “I didn’t mean to...”

“Good morning,” I said, smiling demurely, and I saw the moment Penelope noticed the glasses—a tiny gasp, the lips pressing tight as if to hold something in—and I was sleep-bleary and soft-brained and so I let myself go. I gazed up at the welcome visitor with the clothes and the curves and the clutch of her left hand on the cell phone. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said. I kept looking, watched the heat rise in Penelope’s face. Then I launched up on my toes and kissed her.

I started slow and sweet and tender, then pressed deeper, pulling closer so that I could feel the soft pressure of Penelope against me—the breasts first, of course, then our bellies, then we were thigh to thigh and I was just thinking vaguely to myself that this was rather decorous and restrained as hallway makeouts go when Penelope shifted a little, one arm rounding my shoulders, so that one of her thighs pressed hard between mine and I wrapped my hands behind the soft braided chignon at back of Penelope’s coiffure and let go. I kissed Penelope like she was sleep, like she was food, like she was incarnate Peace and everything I had ever wanted.

“Yes,” I whispered, arching against her so that she could kiss my neck. “God yes, I haven’t been able to stop—”

A cough from down the hallway startled Penelope back a step. Breathless but amused, I chuckled. 

“Morning, George,” I called sunnily to the old man as he trucked past us with his newspaper, muttering. 

Seeing Penelope’s horrified face, I whispered, “Don’t worry. It’s not like it’s the first time.” I took Penelope’s hand and dragged her in.

But, I reflected, as I pulled the woman toward my tidy bedroom, in some ways, it really really was.

*

She was sitting on the edge of my bed like she wasn’t sure what we were doing there. This would not do. Thankful for my soft sleep pants, I swung my knees up onto the bed on either side of her legs, then sat astride her lap.

“I want you,” I said.

“Terrific,” she murmured back, kissing my neck again. Penelope Bunce is a fast learner.

“Right this minute,” I added, in case clarification was necessary.

She nosed at my earlobe. “Same.”

“I love your sweater,” I said. I ran a finger along the very edge of its conservative V-neck, just glancing off the skin below. Penelope shivered. “Will you take it off?”

In answer, she leaned back and tugged off the sweater. For a brief moment that was just long enough for me to take in the full, bare sweep of her arms, she looked to be contemplating sitting back up in just a camisole. Something—perhaps the unrefined desire in my own gaze—made her reconsider. The blue camisole joined the sweater in a little heap on the bed beside her, and then I became insensible to such pedestrian beauties as arm and throat, because Penelope’s breasts commanded every precious ounce of my attention.

Huge and heavy and bewitching, they curved upward from the black satin of her bra that my hands had already started to touch. The fabric slid with exquisite fullness below my fingertips.

I let my fingers trace the curve below one breast, then up into the space between, then, higher, onto her skin. I touched, and touch was immediately not enough, and she knew it and was releasing the catch behind her back and as the bra’s straps slid forward, she poured free of its constraints and into my waiting hands.

The deep-brown ovals of her areolae proved an irresistible temptation. I cupped them in my palms and looked at her laughing eyes and felt the hard nipples tease my skin. 

“Agatha,” she whispered.

“Yes?” 

She smiled so beautifully. “Your eyes, Agatha.”

It was impossible that she wouldn’t have noticed my stare; I probably looked like a lovestruck mannequin. 

I chuckled, dropping my face toward my hands, and toward the splendid cargo of their spread fingers. “Why talk about my eyes when you could be talking about my mouth?”

When I ran my tongue across a nipple, she gasped. When I let my lips come forward to encircle it, she moaned. I pulled away lightly, then did it again. 

“Sure,” she gasped. “Yes, fine. We’ll talk about your mouth.” 

Her hand crept up my back and settled lightly on my head. When she dragged it backward, lines of pressure from her fingertips electrifying my scalp, my tongue paused in its movement across her. I felt every piece of myself: the tingling in my follicles, the pressure of the trembling nipple upon my curved tongue, the surging heat between my legs. God, I hoped she was as wet as I was. I wanted to _know_.

“Your mouth?” she repeated. 

I reminded myself sternly: Agatha Wellbelove does not blush. “I want to taste you.”

She laughed. “Of _course_ you do,” she murmured with a certain irony of tone, shaking her head as if this was in some way not believable.

And so it came to pass that she was entirely naked and I was mouthing my way down her body to sink between her strong thighs and to lick—tentatively at first, then, when her sounds resumed so surprised and astonished that even as my own cunt pulsed with it, so did a tender wellspring in my chest, with greater surety. I let my lips enfold the soft, firm ridges of her vulva. She chuckled and moaned. It seemed like if I just did for her what I demand from _my_ lovers, perhaps she’d never tire of making these lovely noises that mingled ecstasy with laughter. How I loved it.

As I sucked her clit gently into my mouth, I touched her with the tips of my fingers. I stroked until her laughter, which did not show any sign of stopping, became helpless and mushy with feeling. Her hips rocked up against me in little stutters of motion. 

I pulled my mouth away for just a moment. “You want me to ...”

“Yes!” she said, hips jerking vehemently, and so I let the fingers find their way into her. She was wet and so warm, and _god_ , I thought, my tongue working slow passages over her clit as my fingers pressed forward inside her, as I hoped she’d continue to like what I like, _she smells amazing even now_. My fingers’ movement filled the room with her smell—a smell sweet and bright and beguiling.

Her sounds had gone frantic, less laughing, more gasping. I kept an even pace and pressure, not wanting to change what was so obviously working. She was getting close, her legs trembling around me. 

“Wait,” she choked out. “God, just, come up _here_ ; I want to see you.”

I crawled up the bed beside her, running the tip of my nose and my parted lips along the fragrant expanses of her skin. I loved her smell so much. I wanted to steal her clothes so I could fall asleep with that smell surrounding me. 

I almost made it to her face, but got distracted when I reached the breasts and found myself obliged to kiss my way across them and delve between. 

My silk blouse swished as something smooth and hard cut a line down the back of it. In surprise, I pushed away, momentarily, from the haven of her bosom to behold my shirt and undergarments, split from behind, fall lightly around my wrists. I shook them loose to the floor. As they fell, I watched the fibers reweave themselves; before they’d hit down, they were once again quite perfectly whole.

Her ring. Her magic. Her warm hand on the bones of my spine.

Then her hand was in my silly sweats. Once back where they'd been, my fingers never stopped; they thrust and rubbed and then she was in me, too, and we were kissing as we touched and I did not try one single bit to restrain myself from thrusting against her, around her, at her. 

I kissed her ear and she cried out. I licked it, and she whimpered and laughed and trembled, and that ragged laugh was sexier than maybe any sex sound I’d ever heard. It sounded like incredulity and amazement and raw joy, and I wanted to hear it forever.

Sex with Basil had been sinuous and refined and breathtaking. Sex with Penelope was _fun_.

I breathed, “You’re wonderful.” The laughter caught in her throat. Her whole body went rigid and her muscles pulsed around me.

I kissed her hard then, let her take my breath so that I, too, would come while she was still shaking. 

She held me with her hands, her lips, her eyes—startlingly, dreamily open—her leg between mine, her hummed cries. I ground against her and the heat of her hands radiated through me. It filled me like wine, made me flush and giggle and grin and I bucked hard against her one more time and felt the spasms lift me and Penelope hold me close. 

I eased upward from her slowly, letting my head hang above hers still, my wayward hair a curtain shutting us off from everything else. 

We were getting our breath back.

I smiled at her and shook my head in disbelief. 

She looked back and laughed, and then we were both laughing into one another’s faces and I wanted to swim in it.

“My stars,” she chuckled when she finally found words. “Who would have even—”

“My darling,” I said back.

She leaned up and kissed me.

“I haven’t seen your tattoos yet,” she pointed out.

“See?” I said. “No one ever thinks to look at your sides.”

She flipped me to my side and smiled at the stern-eyed peacock that glares from the vicinity of my third rib. She traced its jewel-toned plumage where it tumbles down below my waistband; tugging at the elastic, she spread a hand over my hipbone to cover the forward sweep of its audacious feathers. I flopped onto my back so she could pull my pants down farther.

“There’s another,” she commented, startled to find the other’s plumes on my other hip. 

“Didn’t I say?” I asked.

“I like both your sides, Agatha Wellbelove,” she said, and Penelope Bunce is an English teacher and a genius; she, of all people, must needs understand layered meaning. I felt like all my sides were glowing. Oh, how I rejoiced.

*

I made us omelets and sourdough toast and tea and tried all I could to prolong her stay into the afternoon, but she had school obligations (“On _Saturday_?” I objected, and she shook her head in baleful agreement) and I had a report to revise.

Still, when she finally let go of my hand to rise from the table, I pulled her back.

“Do you have to go?” I moaned.

“I deeply regret that I must.” Her cheeks dimple when she smiles big enough. “The only thing that might soften the blow of this separation would be the knowledge that I will see you again.”

“Please,” I said. “See me as often as you like.”

She kissed the palm of my hand.

“But,” I added, “only if that’s _often_.”

*

I couldn’t focus at home. Packing my computer into its bag, I remembered the little cafe next door to L’Arc-en-Ciel. Close, but perhaps just far enough that my mind could spare a thought for millions of dollars of charitable giving.

As is my habit on the way out the door, I flipped open my mirror.

 _“Does she adore you yet?”_ my reflection inquired cheekily.

I thought it over for a moment, then realized there was no need to prevaricate. I knew my answer, or I thought I did. We had a lot more _knowing_ ahead, I was sure, before my mirror would believe me. But we were on the way to knowing each other, and once we were there, I could hardly doubt adoration would follow.

It had to.

“Darling,” I said, blowing it a kiss, as if flippancy could mask this churning depth of feeling—as if I could ever hide _anything_ from my smirky, all-knowing reflection. “To whom do you think you’re speaking?”

I snapped the case shut, pocketed it, and headed off to do my work.

**Author's Note:**

> PSA: Obviously you don't have to comment, and I'm not trying to pressure you, but if you keep finding that you want to comment on smut but shyness holds you back, just comment anonymously! The writer will love it.
> 
> Chrome users, you don't even have to sign out. Just open the story in an incognito window and comment there! (If so inclined, you can right-click [this link](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7892260) to do so.) Voila.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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